Asaf Manela

asaf manela
Associate Professor of Finance
Washington University in St. Louis

Asaf Manela joined the Olin Business School in 2011. He received his PhD in Finance and an MBA from the University of Chicago in June 2011. He holds a BA in Economics and Computer Science from Boston University. Professor Manela conducts theoretical and empirical research in finance. His current work focuses on asset pricing, financial intermediation, machine learning, text analysis, and information economics.

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Does Finance Benefit Society? A Language Embedding Approach

Abstract

We measure popular sentiment toward finance using a computational linguistics approach applied to millions of books published in eight countries over hundreds of years. We document persistent differences in finance sentiment across countries despite ample time-series variation. Books written in the languages of more capitalist countries discuss finance in a more positive context. Finance sentiment declines one year before rather than after financial crises. Positive shocks to finance sentiment lead to greater GDP and credit growth.